Scout heard Tara stand and walk to the door. She took a deep breath and held her shotgun up at face height for when she opened the door.
The door opened. Tara recoiled at the sight of the elephant mask, and, in an instant, she saw the shotgun and her face became a picture of horror. Scout hit her with the butt of the shotgun and Tara fell backwards into the room on her back. Joey jumped to his feet and kneeled beside Tara. Scout stepped inside the room as everyone else stood up.
“Everyone sit down!” Scout shouted.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Joey shouted.
Scout pointed the shotgun at him and shook her head with a scowl.
Franco drew two handguns from the bag under his seat and stood. “You heard the lady, guys,” he said. “Sit your ass down. Now!”
Eileen started to scream. Scout pointed the shotgun at her head and spoke to Jess, who was sat beside her. The mask muffled her voice as she said, “Either you quiet her down in the next ten seconds or I am going to paint the walls with her brains.”
Scout ripped off the elephant mask. Tara was helped up by Michael.
“Scout?!” Tara shouted. “What on Earth are you doing?”
“All of you into the corner of the room,” Scout said. “Away from the door. Now!”
“Scout, I don’t know what-”
“Shut up!” Scout screamed. She turned her shotgun on Tara.
Franco rounded the others into the corner as Joey picked Tara up off the floor. Tara wiped blood from her forehead.
Scout was shaking with anger. “You are murderers!” she screamed at Tara. She took a step towards Tara. “I saw you!”
Franco pulled cable ties out of his backpack. He threw them at the cornered group.
“Put these on each other,” Franco said, “and no-one gets hurt.”
Franco threw two cable ties at Tara and Joey.
Tara held her head and wiped away tears and said, “I bet that’s not even loaded.”
Scout cocked it and ejected a cartridge. “Six more where that came from,” she said.
“If you fire anything, the police will be down here so fast you wouldn’t have time to reload,” Tara said.
“If I fire anything,” Scout said, “the first person to get shot will be you.”
“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” Tara said.
“Joey,” Scout said, “tie up her fucking wrists or I’m going to shoot off her hands. And I don’t mind which way we do it.”
“What are you hoping to do here?” Joey said.
“I know you,” Scout said. “Seline knew you. That’s why she’s in a hundred pieces. But she left something behind.”
Scout took out Seline’s notebook.
“I’ve seen your basement,” Scout said. She pointed at Tara. “I know you’re not who you say you are.”
Tara looked confused, horrified. “What…” she said, grasping for words. She looked at Joey.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Joey said.
Scout moved her hands on the shotgun and swung it like a shotgun, cracking Joey in the jaw. He collapsed to the floor. Scout picked up the plastic tie and placed the shotgun down as she kneeled beside him and bound his wrists together tightly. Joey groaned and came around a moment later.
Scout looked at Franco and said, “Feet, Franco. Do their feet.”
Franco started to bind everyone’s feet together. Eileen was inconsolable, weeping uncontrollably.
“It’ll be alright,” Franco said to her.
Scout bound Joey and Tara’s feet together as Tara whispered to her.
“What are you doing to us, Scout,” Tara said, tearfully “We only wanted to help you.”
“I know what you are inside,” Scout growled. “Franco, can you help me get her up.”
Scout swooped the coffee and donuts off the table and her and Franco lifted Tara up and placed her on top of it on her back.
“You got the rope?” Scout said.
Franco brought out a length of rope and they bound her to the table by her waist. Tara was in tears. Scout stopped once they had her tied to the table. She studied Tara’s face. She looked grief-stricken. She was genuinely scared. Scout knew what that felt like and she could see it in Tara.
She recalled Tara’s face beneath the mask, her machete soaked in Seline’s blood, and Scout’s sympathy vanished. Her doubts dissipated.
Scout put the shotgun over her back and took out her crucifix and Bible.
She stood before Tara and shouted, “I am speaking to the being inside Tara!”
Tara said, “There’s nothing there! You’re insane! What have I done to you besides try to help you? Tell me that!”
“I am speaking to the being inside Tara. In the name of our Lord God, reveal yourself. In the name of Jesus Christ, reveal yourself. In the name of the Holy Spirit, come forth. Come forth, devil.”
Scout glanced back at Franco who had his guns trained on the others. Joey was groggy, propped up against the wall, watching them with contempt.
“From all evil,” Scout said.
“Deliver us, O Lord,” Franco called back.
“This is-” Tara said.
“From all sin,” Scout said.
“Deliver us, O Lord,” Franco responded.
“From sudden and unprovided death.”
“Deliver us, O Lord.”
“From the snares of the Devil.”
Tara’s back arched up against the ropes. Her hands stretched out above her head and her legs bolted out straight, as if she was being pulled in two by opposing forces and bending in the middle.
Three voices sounded from Tara’s open mouth without it moving, Tara’s voice, a man’s voice, and a voice which Scout recognized instantly as demonic. She said, “You will deliver nothing, bitch!”
Scout’s heart jumped in her chest. Franco turned and looked, wide-eyed.
“That’s it?” Franco said.
Scout nodded. “That’s it,” she said.
Tara’s eyes shut and she emitted three unearthly, deafening screams at the same time. When her eyes opened again, they were pitch black, like the eyes of a shark. The glass in the windows began to rattle and crack. The lights flickered and then shut off completely. The inside of the church was lit only by the streetlight shining through the cracking windows, creating light with spider web patterns over the room.
“In the name of Our Lady Mary, speak your name,” Scout demanded of Tara.
“Whore!” came the cries from Tara.
“Jesus Christ compels you to speak your name!” Scout shouted.
“Bitch!” the three voices sounded.
“You are finished, Devil!” Scout shouted. “Speak your name and it’s done!”
Scout pressed her crucifix against Tara’s body and it began to jerk violently and her skin burned at the contact with it.
“You filthy little slut!” the Taras screamed. “Do you know why He picked you?”
Scout took the crucifix off. “W-what?” she stammered.
“Asmodeus picked you because you were a bad girl pretending to be a good one. He feeds off your shame! He feeds off your self-doubt! Somewhere, he’s still inside you. You will never be rid of him. He has been inside you and a part of him always will be!”
Scout pressed the crucifix against Tara’s chest. “Speak your name, bitch!” Scout said.
Tara screamed and recoiled and tried to escape the burning crucifix. Her shark’s eyes grew wide and her mouth stretched to unnatural proportions and then it came: “Malphas!” the demonic voice cried from deep inside Tara’s body. “Malphas!”
“Malphas?” Scout said. “But if you are Malphas, who was the offering for in the basement? Who is Popobawa?”
Demonic laughter sounded at first from Tara, and then it was joined by another spine-chilling laugh which emanated from all corners of the church. The building began to shake and cracks developed in the walls and floors. Fog and harsh red light crept through the cracks
.
“You are too late,” Tara’s demonic voice said.
Joey stood, with his hands bound behind his back and his feet coupled together, and jumped at Franco, launching his shoulder into his side. He unsteadied him, knocking him to the floor. Franco dropped one of his guns and groaned, holding his stomach.
“Now, Eileen!” Joey shouted.
Eileen stopped sobbing on cue and jumped to her feet. Her hands were bound in front of her. In the moment that she stood upright, Scout was immediately reminded of the elephant under the bridge.
Eileen was the exact size and height and held herself in the same way. Scout knew right away, she was one of the three, with Tara.
Eileen jumped at the gun and grabbed it off the floor. By the time she looked up to aim it, Scout had fired her shotgun into Eileen’s head. It popped like a water balloon, spraying bone fragments and fleshy brain matter and fluid over the other group members. Jess began to scream.
“She was one of the killers!” Scout said to Franco.
Tara laughed maniacally in all three voices. Her body began to float up off the table. The ropes fell away from her. her body spinned in the air to right itself. She stood three feet off the floor.
“Now is the time,” Tara said in three voices, “for those who have trusted in me so far to trust in me once again. Now. Now!”
Joey jumped to his feet and shouted, “Hail Father Satan!”
Franco and Scout looked at one another. Scout nodded. They opened fire and shredded Joey’s body where he stood in a barrage of gunfire, his chest exploding out of his back and his body being thrown to the floor with a splat. The others looked on in horror. Jess screamed as if it was the last noise she would ever make.
The windows were filling with bright red light from outside.
There was a knock at the door.
“Who the fuck is that?” Franco said.
Tara’s laughter filled the room.
The door burst open. A man stumbled in like a puppet anchored to the floor, being pushed along by an invisible hand. The man was no longer a man at all. It was the corpse of Dr Maddox. His jaw hung loose, his eyeballs were dry and beginning to slip out of place. His skin was grey and cold. His shirt was covered in blood which had dried brown.
Three voices were cast from the lifeless face of Dr Maddox. “Hello again, Scout.”
“You,” Scout said.
“I’m so glad you came back to the group.”
“You’re- You’re possessed?” Scout said. “That’s why you sent me here isn’t it?”
Tara and Maddox spoke as one in a chorus of six voices. “You are trusting, Liliana, and you are weak! These two summoned their masters, unlike you. They asked for us to take their bodies. They wanted to be more than human. They provided the sacrifices to draw us in and we took it upon ourselves to find the perfect sacrifices.”
“Why are you here?” Scout said.
“The surface world is so much more fun,” they said. “We heard stories of how much fun Asmodeus had with you, and we wanted to try it for ourselves. Now Asmodeus is itching to return. And others wished to join as eagerly as Joey and Eileen wished to have them.”
“Asmodeus is dead!” Scout said. “Father Piotr buried him where you can never find him!”
“Father Piotr drew him out and killed the manifestation that came through your body, but there is always something of a demon left in the underworld. We are eternal, unkillable.”
“There is nothing left of him inside me,” Scout said. She cocked her shotgun.
“But he wants so much to come back,” they said. “And once you’ve been opened up once, you become such a useful doorway. If you want him back, you need only say the word.”
“No-one controls my body but me,” Scout said.
Scout fumbled and brought her notebook back up.
“Come forth, devils!” she shouted. “Depart forthwith in fear, along with your savage minions, from these servants of God!”
The re-animated corpse of Dr Maddox rose off the ground and floated beside Tara.
“The power of Jesus Christ compels you! Depart, beasts!”
Scout stepped closer to the two of them.
“May Jesus, son of Mary and Lord and Savior of our world, through the merits and intercession of his Holy apostles and all his saints, show you favor and mercy. Depart, devils!”
Tara and Maddox began to scream. The windows of the church shattered inwards. Scout and Franco ducked to avoid the flying glass. Franco stood beside Scout. The remaining group members, including Michael, watched in horror.
“What the fuck is going on?” Franco said as he and Scout watched the bodies of Tara and Maddox being pulled by invisible forces, being stretched in inhuman ways.
“I think they’re manifesting in the flesh!” Scout shouted over the screams. She ducked down to Franco’s bag and started loading more ammunition into her shotgun. “Get ready for whatever comes through,” Scout said.
Tara’s skin started to tear around her mouth as her jaw stretch like a snake eating its prey. Something was emerging from within her. In the darkness of Tara’s mouth, Scout saw another pair of eyes at first, and then an unhuman face. The face distorted as it was birthed through Tara’s mouth. It pushed itself out slowly as Tara choked with her eyes firmly shut tight. She vomited up a snake that was larger than the space afforded within her body. It kept coming.
“Tara!” Jess screamed. “What the fuck?!”
Scout and Franco moved back against the far wall. The other group members were screaming and begging to be untied.
The snake came fully out, with a second head on the end of its tail. With the beast evacuating Tara completely, Tara collapsed into a lifeless heap on the floor. The two heads of the snake with black shark-like eyes rose and hissed.
Maddox’s body was torn apart from the inside, his skin stretched to ripping point and then discarded as two long-fingered hands clawed their way out. The claws punctured his stomach and started to pull his dead body apart. Blinking black eyes shone from behind Maddox’s rib cage. A great mouth with sharp teeth yawned and roared beneath the rib cage, cracking its way through.
Popobawa.
A furry head, slick with blood and interior fluids, emerged from Maddox’s chest, folding the doctors head back as if it was the hood on a coat. The enormous claws spread out and its leathery arms folded outwards, more than tripling in size to became the black, leathery wings of a bat the size of a small car.
The head of a rat, the wings of a crow, the feet of a chicken, as written in Seline’s notebook.
It translated into a giant demonic bat.
“Holy fucking shit,” Scout said.
“Holy fucking shit,” Franco said.
Scout held up the crucifix and the snake lunged at her. Scout rolled out of the way. She threw the crucifix on the ground and fired her shotgun into the snake Malphas’s torso, demolishing a chunk of its flesh. The snake recoiled in pain.
Franco dropped to one knee and started firing both of his handguns at the giant bat’s wings. The bat flapped to the floor, its heavy, hairy body hitting with a great thump. The bat became frantic and its long claws thrashed around and slashed at Franco, slicing into his chest and sending him sprawling to the ground. The bat leaped on top of Franco and began clawing at him, sending blood spraying across the walls.
Scout grabbed an overturned chair and held it in front of her chest and rested the barrel of the shotgun on one of the legs. “Hey!” she shouted at the bat, Popobawa.
Popobawa turned its head and Scout fired. The blast took off the bat’s lower jaw and it screeched.
Michael tried to stand with his bound hands and feet to hop towards the door, just as Scout blasted Popobawa’s lower jaw into a fine mist. Popobawa thrashed with its razor-sharp claws and one caught Michael deep across the neck. He stopped amid the shitstorm of flying claws and flapping, bullet-ridden wings. He dropped to his knees holding his throat as a thin red line opened up on his throat. The t
hin red line opened into a yawning wound which resulted in his head completely rolling off the stump of his neck and landing on the wooden floor with a thump.
Scout lost her concentration amid the morbid spectacle of seeing Michael’s head fall off and in an instant was being crushed by Malphas’s thick, scaly body wrapping itself around her. Her shotgun was squeezed against her, the bones in her hand being crushed between the body of the snake and the grip of the shotgun. She felt her knife tumbled to the floor.
Franco held back the frenzied head of Popobawa as its bat head snapped at his own. He pushed it back with both hands, trying to hold onto a gun in each hand at the same time.
“Fuck!” he screamed.
“You belong to Father Satan!” Popobawa screeched.
“I belong to no motherfucker,” Franco said.
He let go of the bat’s head with both hands and shoved one arm completely into its monstrous mouth. Popobawa swallowed it up to his shoulder and bit down with a sickening crunch. Franco screamed and found the strength to fire the gun that was now shoved entirely up into Popobawa’s head. With a few thunderous shots, Popobawa’s brains exploded up out of the back of its head. Its jaws clamped down in a reflex action and Franco’s arm was sliced clean off.
Franco howled in pain and, suddenly free, fell to the floor. As he hit, he had a moment’s focus and fired a single shot at Malphas as it was in the process of crushing the life out of Scout.
The shot hit Malphas on the body and Scout felt its death-grip loosen for just a split second, but that was all she needed. She relaxed her body and slipped down out of the snake’s grasp. She hit the floor and pulled the shotgun up with her one unbroken arm as one of the snake’s head bore down on her with open jaws. She fired and the head burst open and split straight down the middle in a shower of blood. The head flopped the floor. Scout had half a second to get up on one knee before the second head was lunging for her. A gunshot from Franco hit the head on the side and deflected its trajectory. It slammed into the floor and spinned around.
What it saw when it spinned back around made it stop dead in its tracks. Scout was resting the shotgun on her broken arm, holding it with her good arm, pointed at the dead center of the its head.
Her finger was squeezing the trigger.
After The Exorcism: Book Two Page 4
